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Updated: May 21, 2025
Instantly there arose a dense cloud of steam on board the Miraflores, accompanied by a loud hissing noise; her speed suddenly slackened; and Douglas knew that one of the cruiser's shells had penetrated a boiler; and he shuddered in spite of himself at the thought of the scene which was now probably enacting down in the gun-runner's engine-room.
Steam was then raised in the three sound boilers, and, the water being quite smooth, the Miraflores was brought alongside the cruiser, which then replaced her damaged guns, and hoisted fresh ones out of the gun-runner's hold with her own derricks.
Several of her guns had been badly damaged; but the young man suggested that they could be replaced, together with the damaged weapons belonging to the Angamos, from the gun-runner's cargo, which consisted, in part, of a number of similar pieces.
The young Englishman had imagined that he saw, by the light of the rockets, a number of men scampering about the decks, but he concluded that it was merely the effect of terror and astonishment, and he was totally unprepared for the gun-runner's next move.
Half an hour passed and the cruiser was very, very near; so near, indeed, that Jim could plainly hear the throbbing of the gun-runner's machinery; and they must also have caught the sound of his, for he suddenly saw another rocket rush up into the still night air, and directly afterwards a red glow began to hover over the tops of their funnels, showing that they were trying to increase their speed by coaling up furiously.
Appalled by the suddenness and extent of the disaster, both the Miraflores and the Angamos ceased firing for several minutes; and, by the light of the fires which were still burning on board both vessels, Jim could see the gun-runner's crew dashing wildly about, as though in the last extremity of terror, while the ship herself was almost shrouded from view by the dense clouds of steam, coloured ruddy yellow in the light of the braziers, which still gushed in volumes from her pierced boilers.
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